Museums And Art Galleries

Published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the Vancouver Art gallery from February 18 to 28 May 2017.

This is a book about adult education in the sphere of public museums and art galleries. It aims to enrich and expand dialogue and understanding amongst adult and community educators, curators, artists, directors, and cultural activists who work within and beyond the walls of these institutions. The various chapters take up the complex and interconnected pedagogics of subjectivity, identity, meaning making and interpretation, knowledge, authority, prescription, innovation, and creativity. The contributors are a combination of scholars, professors, graduate students, heritage and cultural adult educators, artists, curators and researchers from Canada, United States, Iceland, England, Scotland, Denmark, Portugal, Italy and Malta. Collectively, they challenge us to think about the dialectics of passivity and engagement, didactics and learning, gender neutrality and radicality, and neutrality and risk-taking amongst a collage of artworks and artefacts, poetry and installations, collections and exhibits, illusion and reality, curatorial practice and learning, argument and narrative, and struggle and possibility that define and shape modern day art and culture institutions. The chapters, set amongst the discursive politics of neoliberalism and patriarchy, racism and religious intolerance, institutional neutrality and tradition, capitalism and neo-colonialism, ecological devastation and social injustice, take up the spirit and ideals of the radical and feminist traditions of adult education and their emphases on cultural participation and knowledge democracy, agency and empowerment, justice and equity, intellectual growth and transformation, critical social and self reflection, activism and risk-taking, and a fundamental belief in the power of art, dialogue, reflection, ideological and social critique and imaginative learning.

Despite the common belief that art galleries will naturally become more gender equitable over time, the fact is that many art institutions in Canada have become even less so over the last decade, with female artists making up less than 25 per cent of the contemporary exhibitions of several major galleries. In the first large-scale overview of gender diversity in Canadian art exhibitions, Anne Dymond makes a persuasive plea for more consciously equitable curating. Drawing on data from nearly one hundred institutions, Diversity Counts reveals that while some galleries are relatively equitable, many continue to marginalize female and racialized artists. The book pursues an interdisciplinary approach, considering the art world's resistance to numeric data, discourses on representation and identity, changing conceptualizations of institutional responsibility over time, and different ways particular institutions manage inclusion and exclusion. A thoughtful examination of the duty of public galleries to represent underserved communities, Dymond's study bravely navigates the unspoken criteria for acceptance in the curatorial world. Demonstrating how important hard data is for inclusivity, Diversity Counts is a timely analysis that brings the art world up to date on progressive movements for social transformation.

When the Edmonton Museum of Arts opened in 1924 it was only the second art gallery in Canada west of Toronto. Spaces and Places for Art tells the story of the financial and ideological struggles that community groups and artist societies in booming frontier cities and towns faced in establishing spaces for the cultivation of artistic taste. Mapping the development of art institutions in western Canada from the founding of the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1912 to the 1990s heyday of art museums in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, Anne Whitelaw provides a glimpse into the production, circulation, and consumption of art in Canada throughout the twentieth century. Initially dependent on paintings loaned from the National Gallery of Canada, art galleries across the western part of the country gradually built their own collections and exhibitions and formed organizations that made them less reliant on institutions and government agencies in Ottawa. Tracing the impact of major national arts initiatives such as the Massey Commission, the funding programs of the Canada Council, and the policies of the National Museums Corporation, Whitelaw sheds light on the complex relationships between western Canada and Ottawa surrounding art. Building on extensive archival research and in-depth analysis of government involvement, Spaces and Places for Art is an invaluable explanation of the roles of cultural institutions and cultural policy in the emergence of artistic practice in Canada.

Published to accompany exhibition organized by Dulwich Picture Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, in collaboration with the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, and the Groninger Museum.